Don’t Be Fooled By the Internet Connections We’ve Got
Journalism cliche watch: the AP has another story about those effete, pampered college students who demand nothing but the best in housing and food,
Penn State’s new all-single dorm making a better story than U of M’s decades-long housing-construction hiatus. State schools are allegedly the most extravagant spenders, springing for frills like “high-speed Internet connections,” gyms with swimming pools and parking lots. But that’s nothing. We hear some of these universities have cafeterias at their engineering schools that stay open later than 2 p.m., rec buildings that are air conditioned in the summer - the works.
The story seems a little misleading in the sense that many of the schools mentioned are private universities. “Luxurious” student living arrangements should only be a concern for taxpayer-supported schools, in theory. Can’t private schools do what they want with their money?
posted by Nick on December 14th, 2003 at 6:40 pmwell, we are paying a lot for a degree so it’s only fair to provide us the “best” though I don’t really think everything at the UM is the best.
posted by __earth on December 14th, 2003 at 6:43 pmI really, really hope none of these stories are supposed to be about U of M. I’d never thought of my (private) undergrad school as particularly piling on the amenities - lots of quad and quint rooms, rundown dorms with mice and roaches, mediocre-at-best cafeteria food - but I’ve come to appreciate it now.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 14th, 2003 at 7:09 pmNever seen the U-M’s dorm situation, but in general I’ve heard few people describe their dorms the way this story does. What seems so odd is that, for many many schools, dorm construction is not really an choice because the numbers of new students coming in are so high these days. Part and parcel of things like exporting manufacturing industries and emphasizing a highly skilled workforce, etc., but in lots of cases state schools are mandated to take enormous numbers of in-state freshmen. In CA, for example, any in-state HS grad above a certain GPA (I forget what) by law gets admitted to the nearest UC - this applies everywhere except Berkeley and UCLA, which are more competitive. My alma mater (mentioned in the AP piece) sits on a postage stamp of land in the middle of horrible neighborhoods and has had terrible space problems for 20 or so years. So, I sort of think this is a supply-demand issue.
posted by Nick on December 14th, 2003 at 7:23 pmBut the U of M is huge and they haven’t built a dorm since - when? The 70’s? At my undergrad school, almost everyone lives on campus all four years. It’s really strange to me how there’s this stigma about living in the dorms past freshman year here. I wonder if the university doesn’t encourage it somehow so they don’t have to spend money on new construction. They win, the landlords win…
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 14th, 2003 at 7:28 pmI would look at it more in terms of the value of the land and the dislike of undergrads in many quarters of town. That is, to build a dorm you have to site it somewhere, and unless you’re going to put it in Saline it’s going to cost a lot to pry the space away from people who want to put more lucrative things on it (i.e., single-family homes or malls). Not to mention that you would have to get the approval of the neighborhood to fill it with college students. But you may be right about the stigma - I’d never heard of anything like it before I came here.
posted by Nick on December 14th, 2003 at 7:38 pmThe value of the land is whatever the highest and best use is, including the present zoning. That is always based on comparable sales - period. UM appears to have enough land (such as north campus) to accomodate building dorms.
posted by in name only on December 14th, 2003 at 7:56 pmhow about graduate student dorms? lets build some of those
posted by just a voice on December 14th, 2003 at 8:10 pmI went to Michigan undergrad but transferred from a small East Coast college. I never lived in the dorms at Michigan because although there was a residency requirement for the first two years in my program, there was no space in the required dorm.
I was really relieved that they couldn’t accomodate me. I HATED living in the dorms in my first year in college; it was loud, there was no escaping the people you found annoying, the parties were no fun, it was impersonal, I found it hard to study, and the cinder-block construction was soul-less and alienating. I much preferred living in the co-ops, regardless of how filthy and run-down they were — much more homey, much more fun, better parties, more personal, easier to study, I got to live with people of a wider set of ages and experiences (from grad students down) and the people were more interesting.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the way UM’s housing works for undergrads at least from the perspective of the students. Get ‘em out of the dorms as quickly as possible — it just can’t be good to have so many people crammed into such tight quarters in a big institutional setting. Yeah, it probably drives up the apartment prices around campus, but I think most students are happier living off-campus, and they really are pretty self-sufficient when they graduate. I don’t have faith in UM’s ability to build spaces that people will actually want to live in — check out South and West quads.
The students here live in the dorms (albeit much homier ones than the UM would ever be able to build for 30,000 undergrads) for all four years, and they — at least my advisees — seem earnestly freaked out by the whole living-away-from-dorm thing when they graduate. I have a former advisee who elected to live in a dorm in her first year in grad school (in Cambridge) because she was just so wigged out by the idea of living on her own. And the ruckus when our dining hall workers went on strike — you’d think they’d never heard of buying Subway or Dunkin’ Donuts before in their lives — it was weird. From my perspective, that sort of dependence just seems unhealthy.
posted by Anna on December 14th, 2003 at 8:16 pmHmm. This is one of the things about AA that puzzles me. I’m pretty new here, but if the U-M owns enough underdeveloped land and has the resources to build new dorms, then why aren’t students demanding an alternative to the overpriced hellholes they live in now? Probably goes back to the stigma thing, but the point is that the U probably isn’t going to build something new unless they perceive a need for it. And people only seem to bitch about the housing here in private. My old school has done lots of dorm construction recently, but that’s because living in the surrounding neighborhood is not an option. Unlike AA, where the homes around campus just look like crackhouses, the ones near my alma mater actually were. And the students made it clear that their continued tuition dollars depended on new housing.
posted by Nick on December 14th, 2003 at 8:17 pmWow, weird Nick… our posts crossed in the ether, but see above for an ex-undergrad perspective….
posted by Anna on December 14th, 2003 at 8:20 pmMy last post, by the way, refers to INO.
And my MA school in CA did have grad student housing on-campus - very nice, very new 1BR and 2BR apartments, with the cost partially subsidized by the Univ. Ah, the good old days.
posted by Nick on December 14th, 2003 at 8:20 pm(Forgive my ignorance..but what’s INO?)
posted by Anonymous on December 14th, 2003 at 8:22 pmin name only
posted by Nick on December 14th, 2003 at 8:25 pmAnna, interesting perspective. I guess there really is no nice place to live in AA. Damn.
posted by Nick on December 14th, 2003 at 8:31 pmI think living in dorms is actually really good for students. They mention in the AP article that students who live on campus have better grades. I knew one person who moved off campus as an undergrad, only to move back the next semester. If on-campus housing isn’t considered uncool, the community there can be something you’ll never get to experience anywhere else.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 14th, 2003 at 8:49 pmDoes U-M have a policy that off-campus undergrads have to move on if their grades get really bad? My old school did.
posted by Nick on December 14th, 2003 at 8:53 pmCan’t the University just use eminent domain to take away land they need to build new dorms?
posted by gyc on December 14th, 2003 at 9:04 pmNick, No — no policy like that….The university is very hands-off when it comes to their students’ lives in general.
I dunno, AAIO, that may be true at smaller schools (that living in dorms is good and creates a sense of community), but UM is already such a factory for undergrads. They’d have to come up with some really, really good quad-type designs that were much more homey and centrally located (if they built mroe dorms, they’d probably put them out on North Campus, where few undergrads are going to want to live) than what they’ve got for it to be pleasant.
posted by Anna on December 14th, 2003 at 9:27 pmThere’s been on-going talk of a 900-person private dorm to be built on Broadway, near the Broadway/Plymouth/Murfin intersection (e.g. North Campus). Googling brings up vague mention of a site plan being filed in 2002. Expect 2 years of Process, but also substantial neighborhood outcry which will probably extend that time, after which a year of construction will yield a bunch of new adjacent-to-campus housng. So, I predict 2006 or 2007?
But yes, if the U iteself built more housing, it would be on North Campus. There are huge empty fields on NC just waiting for the University to fill them; they’re not going to spend cash on premium downtown real estate when they already own some up north.
posted by Murph on December 14th, 2003 at 10:16 pmIn fact, there’s already a plan to build up a new dorm up in North Campus. It’s supposed to be completed somewhere in the mid 2000ish.
posted by __earth on December 15th, 2003 at 12:24 amMichigan State University has a grad student dorm, Owen Graduate Center. However, when I lived in East Lansing (until 1988) it carried a pretty heavy stigma: people who lived in Owen (other than foreign students) were regarded as pretty weird.
MSU has not built any dorms since the 1960s, so I don’t think the abandonment of dorm construction is exclusively a UM thing. Rather, it’s that students just aren’t interested in dormitory living any more.
There has been a momentus change in the expectations of what the lifestyle of a university student would be. One’s college years (as recently as the 1950s and 1960s) was seen as a time of almost monkish or military-style self-deprivation. Now that very idea seems hilarious.
The 1960s crusade for student rights was focused on issues like free speech and the draft. At MSU, the Committee for Student Rights (East Lansing’s first 1960s protest group, organized in my father’s living room) fought mainly for the right to publish “The Paper”. At Berkeley, the first protest group was literally named the Free Speech Movement.
But with the age of majority lowered to 18, and with student rights triumphing over the concept that schools were in loco parentis, students had much more freedom to choose alternatives to barracks style living arrangements.
More than that: by the 1980s, they had the resources. With tuition way up and student aid disappearing, students from poor or blue collar backgrounds largely disappeared from MSU and UM (and probably many other schools); offspring of the upper middle class now predominates.
See, e.g., the precipitous fall since 1975 in the percentage of undergrads entering MSU (and surely also U-M) from blue-collar Detroit suburbs like Warren, Roseville, Taylor, Allen Park, Lincoln Park, Melvindale, Wyandotte, etc. In their place are many more students from the high income suburbs like the Grosse Pointes, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, and equivalent areas out of state.
One of the reason why upscale chain stores are coming to dominate the business areas near campus (driving out useful things like laundromats and supermarkets) is that they are catering to students from affluent backgrounds who are accustomed to the standardized luxuries they offer.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 15th, 2003 at 1:07 amBut for every overpriced chain sandwich shop, there’s a quaint little art gallery, a From Vintage to Vogue (gag) home furnishings store, a Ciaccio Market. Students aren’t shopping in these places. Furthermore, is dinner in an overpriced chain really more expensive than eating in the dorms? I’m not sure how Michigan does their meal plan, but when I was an undergrad, we paid per meal on something like Entree Plus here, and it was expensive.
Actually, now I’m curious - was there ever a grocery store by campus, or a laundromat closer than Mr. Stadium?
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 15th, 2003 at 1:39 amLarry’s post reminded me of my senior year at EDHS (that’s east detroit highschool), where many (roughly 20) people from my graduating class got into UM, but only two were able to afford it. I think i may have actually gotten points on my app for being from macomb county. in my mind, although i am a supporter of affirmative action, this is the great flaw in the university’s quest for diversity: tons of students from roseville and surrounding burbs have the scores to go to UM, few have the cash.
to respond to aaio’s question about the meal plan: when i lived in west quad, the dorm lease came with ten meals a week. sophomore year, i opted for possible starvation on my own in a random house rather than submit to another day of gastronomical horror. for me, the decision to leave the dorms had much less to do with the stigma than sheer conformity of the place. the people i met in my hall (granted, i was there for only four months) were from troy, birmingham, etc. they watched friends and made popcorn, and liked to make fun of the east quad freaks and geeks. living in a house is liberating, and i wouldn’t advocate a radical expansion of university student housing. encouraging students to live in houses and coops allows imprompu communities to form in a less institutional environment. rent control, tenants rights, a grocery story, but never a UM comprised of cold brick glass holding cells.
posted by Anonymous on December 15th, 2003 at 3:24 amgrocery storE, that is
posted by elise on December 15th, 2003 at 3:26 amWell, there used to be a laundromat right off of South U next to a bike shop (oh my god! I thought the names of all of the streets were burned into my psyche, but I’ve forgotten!). It isn’t still there? There also was one on Packard next to what now is a hardware store (that isn’t still there?), near the intersection of State and Packard. There was also another one in there somewhere, but since most places I lived had at least coin-op laundry, I’m a bit hazy on the details.
And for groceries, there has always been White Market, which I actually never thought was bad. The prices weren’t *that* much more than Kroger, I hate huge supermarkets — takes too long to pick up just a few groceries — I liked supporting a local family business, and it had all the basics that I needed (milk, cereal, yogurt, a few frozen dinner choices, carots, broccoli, etc.). In my memory, though, there has never been a full-scale grocery store within walking distance of campus. But, really, since we’re all complaining about chains, why would we wish a meijer into town? If I were still there, I’d much rather see a slightly more expensive but smaller and locally-owned market.
For produce I shopped at people’s food coop, but whole foods put an end to their packard-street location, and the one near Kerrytown is smaller and can be a schlep, depending on where you live (and oh gosh, I take it that it still exists??).
The market in Kerrytown used to be a little less ridiculous before Zingerman bought it — they also used to have really, really nice produce, and when I lived on N. Main, I shopped there quite a lot. Also, there was one other market that I vaguely remember, more like a White Market, down there someplace, but it went out of business.
I’ve been meaning to add something. There are some good things about the gentrification of AA. Early in my undergrad years, Main Street was really run-down and depressing. All the beautiful old buildings were covered with a set of horrendous storefronts of wire and metal mesh in 60s style — all those buildings around Gratzi — and there were some old clothing stores and a department store where nobody shopped (well, a few people did, but by the early 90s not many — they certainly never carried anything that appealed to students and the few times I went in, the service was horrendous). Main Street closed down at 6 PM except for a couple bars. One of the first things that happened down there was Espresso Royale, followed by other things, which was a nice change. I wish the places hadn’t all turned into restaurants, but on the other hand, it really _is_ nice to see Main Street as a place where people want to go as opposed to the post-industrial depressed area that Michigan has way too much of….
posted by Anna on December 15th, 2003 at 8:50 am(Re Vintage to Vogue and other foofy stores targeted to nonstudents.) Of course there are plenty of affluent townies here, too. And with many wealthy and generous alumni, U-M has a lot more money sloshing around than MSU.
When I worked at MSU, if I came in late and had to park my car on the roof of the parking structure, that meant I had to walk down stairs to the floor below to catch the elevator. To retrieve my car, I had to climb those same stairs.
At UM, the elevator takes you right to the roof. Hence the top of the elevator shaft towers over the rest of the structure. The extra cost in today’s dollars had to be at least $100,000, probably a lot more.
Another item of oddness: a year or two ago, UM apparently decided to enclose the elevator lobbies on each floor of the Thompson Street parking structure. That meant installing glass doors and windows in the wide opening into the parking area on each floor. No doubt there were good reasons for doing this.
To my astonishment, below the windows on each one of seven floors, they (1) installed a masonry knee wall, and (2) closely matched the color and texture of the surrouding brown brick. (If you have ever tried to match brick, you know how much hassle it is.) Actual brickmasons came in to lay these bricks — I talked with one of them.
This is inside a parking structure where most of the walls, floors, and ceilings are bare concrete.
Me, I’m probably in the 99th percentile on attention to architectural details. Even by my standards, this was over the top. I’m guessing they raised the cost of this little project into six figures.
MSU would have framed in a brown plastic panel below the window and left it at that. Or, if masonry knee walls were really required, concrete blocks would do.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 15th, 2003 at 9:14 amAnna-
FYI- the Busch family lives in Ann Arbor. Even though it is a large grocery store, it is very much a local business. The Hiller family also lives in Ann Arbor, and is also a local “chain”. They bank here, they live here, they employ people here. And speaking from experience, both stores try and purchase locally produced products whenever possible.
AAIO—the grad student living situation needs to be handled by an organized collective. It could be as complicated as putting direct pressure on the admin. to provide dorms themselves, or as simple as approaching the local apartment management companies in bulk, and negotiating contracts on a much larger scale.
Just an opinion, but the housing situation seems to be such a serious issue that operating as a collective would give students much more power to fix the problem.
posted by todd on December 15th, 2003 at 9:19 amForgive my ignorance, but who are the Hillers? (Meijer? Kroger?). Anyway, I never took issue with Busch’s; it’s smaller and easier to shop in and the produce is pretty OK, actually. If Busch’s wanted to open a smaller-scale city-sized grocery store in AA, that would be a nice addition.
posted by Anna on December 15th, 2003 at 9:26 amI am quite sure that the Busch family would love to open a store in downtown AA—-the city needs to take an active role, but they never have. That’s why we have ALL of the urban planning problems that we have in AA—-the city is great at telling developers what they can’t do, but they haven’t really formulated a plan that tells they what they need, and where. If they ever figure this out, AA will be a much better place to live.
Hillers is a somewhat gourmet grocery store in the Arborland mall complex—where Chili’s is.
posted by todd on December 15th, 2003 at 9:34 amAnd the folks that run Colemans live here (but I thought that the Busches lived in Saline…)
posted by js on December 15th, 2003 at 9:47 amjs
Through my general orneryness and procrastination, I have weirdly morphed into an Ann Arbor apologist…:)
Anyway, the city planners do deserve some credit, although I would agree that they could have done some things better.
Briarwood was a terrible problem for downtown A2. Ann Arbor lost a number of very large stores — including a department store right near the corner of Liberty and State — the current Border’s location. Although the A2 city planners could have done some things differently, the way people shop is just so different from the way they used to shop. People WANT the Gap, they WANT malls with fifty clothing stores under one roof, as much as a few of us wish that weren’t so.
Despite our current conceptualization of Borders as a huge conglomeration, they weren’t that huge back then (they went from a couple to 18 stores to around 60 in the early nineties). Borders had just finished completely remodeling their State street location, (next to the current Shaman Drum location) and had absolutely NO interest in moving into the department store. The city worked really, really hard to put that deal together, probably saving that whole section of State Street from having a huge, decaying, vacant building for probably at least a few years if not longer, and paving the way for a couple smaller local businesses in the process (Shaman Drum, for example, which turned into what Borders used to be).
posted by Anna on December 15th, 2003 at 9:49 amI suppose next these pampered students will want “locks” on their dormroom doors! Sheesh….
posted by Boris on December 15th, 2003 at 11:43 amregarding your comment about north, i couldn’t agree more. north campus needs some serious work. it’s a disgrace to the university. i’m sure much has been said about this but you can never complain enough.
posted by james on December 15th, 2003 at 1:57 pm“a disgrace to the university.” Come now, James, what has North Campus done to you that’s been that bad? I’ll agree that it has its downsides, but I *did* choose to live near it for 3 years; it’s not intolerable.
And I’m curious. What would you do to it?
posted by Murph on December 15th, 2003 at 3:33 pmReally interesting stuff about A2 history, everyone. I didn’t know a lot of that.
And North Campus is pretty awful - I don’t know about living there, but having your department there is no fun. It’s like a corporate campus, but at least you’d expect a corporate campus to have parking and ultra-modern buildings.
What would I do to it? I would put anything on the first floor of Pierpont EXCEPT for a travel agency.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 15th, 2003 at 3:38 pmMaybe the travel agency is a hint to those who have to spend lots of time on North Campus . . .
posted by Nick on December 15th, 2003 at 3:44 pmA hint I’ve tried to resist taking, but it gets difficult…
Actually, the best “amenity” at my alma mater was a 24-hour student-run coffeehouse. Nothing fancy in the way of food or drink - just plain coffee, soda, doughnuts, Hot Pockets, and that sort of thing - but it was a big space with couches, huge windows and lots of art. Of course, after I graduated, they first restricted the hours and then shut it down completely, but that’s what I’d put in North Campus.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 15th, 2003 at 3:52 pmI wish Peter Allen would get a Busch’s or something in the Broadway Village development in Lower Town…
Anyway, the dorms really sucked in my opinion. I lived in them freshman and sophomore year when I went to U-Colorado, and found it really loud and obnoxious… you are just trapped with dozens of the sort of people you can’t stand, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Not having to cook was pretty nice though, but more expensive.
As for grad student dorms, my friend is in one at Wayne State right now and hates it… apparently he is about the only person not from India or China in his entire 14-story building. Not that he has anything against foreigners, but I think he feels a little alone in a way. He plans on moving off-campus next year.
posted by Brandon on December 15th, 2003 at 9:40 pmJust out of curiousity:
1) Does that old, abandoned Olga’s still exist? I mean, is it still abandoned? The one on the NE corner of Washington & State? WHY haven’t they been able to find a renter or buyer for that place? Is the owner a nut? What gives? (they could put a very thin, tall dorm there, one double room room per floor, 100 stories, what do you think city council?).
2) That hotel that used to be downtown, the one between Liberty and Washington (I think it was a Holiday Inn)… does that still house older people? The co-ops almost bought it in 1991, so that *could* have been student housing, except the co-op membership voted it down. Certainly it was also offered to the University.
3) Does People’s Food Co-op still exist at all? What about the bread co-op that used to be next door? Does that exist? You used to be able to pop in and bake bread for the hell of it there…
4) Has Amer managed to take over an entire city block yet? Does he still own the place that was briefly the Screaming Dog (yikes).
posted by Anna on December 15th, 2003 at 9:51 pmBrandon, if it’s the one I’m thinking of, there used to be a Kroger there… it closed about five years ago. Nobody ever shopped there….
posted by Anna on December 15th, 2003 at 9:55 pmAnna, the Co-op is still in Kerrytown and always busy when I go in. There’s a juice place next door but I’m not aware of any u-bake bread co-op.
posted by RD on December 15th, 2003 at 10:40 pmI think you mentioned a laundromat at Packard & State too … there’s a hardware store/laundry/hot dog stand combo there that recently got remodeled.
Olga’s is being turned into luxury condos. As for the co-op, it’s nice to have somewhere to buy food in my neighborhood but I’d prefer a big chain supermarket. Not sure about the hotel.
In Cambridge, grad student dorm spaces were highly in demand by the whole grad student population. It all depends on whether a school takes a positive, forward-thinking approach to building housing or treats it as a place to warehouse students who can’t find another place to live. (I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to live in a grad student dorm here.)
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 15th, 2003 at 11:09 pmI saw someone mention local (downtown/campus) grocery stores such as White Market but nothing about that grocery/liquor/etc store that is at the corner of S. University and Church, across from the Subway. After having passed it by many times I recently discovered it was actually a grocery store with decent stock, not to mention it’s open pretty late. I’m not sure of the name.
Anna, re: 2) Olga’s, it is now an 8-storey condo building.
posted by tomo on December 15th, 2003 at 11:35 pmYeah Anna, that’s where the new Broadway Village development is going… I’m surprised a Kroger in that location failed actually, being so near to the students and other denizens of central Ann Arbor.
Tomo, that’s Village Corner you are talking about.
posted by Brandon on December 16th, 2003 at 12:57 amactually, aaio, the dorms are more expensive and that’s including the food… at least in my case.
posted by elise on December 16th, 2003 at 1:23 amAnna, The Screaming Dog is no more; there’s an Italian place there now (D’Amatos) with a ghastly late-90’s martini bar in the basement (Good Night Gracie’s). Amer bought out the Cava Java on S. University, but I saw a couple weeks ago that it just changed its name (again!) so who knows who’s running the show there now. I’m sure the Annarbourobserver’s archives have all the gory details.
And right smack downtown on Washington and Fourth (I think) there’s that ugly monstrosity for “senior living downtown!” What a misnomer. They don’t “live downtown!” They just breathe downtown. And take up precious real estate. There are many wastes of space in downtown Annarbour. But none rankles me so much as that absurd “senior center!” If some poorly-informed voters ever had the bad judgment to vote me into Annarbour office, issue number one would be to ship all the seniors off to a trailer park in Pinckney. Half of them won’t even know where they are.
I know, I know — the seniors want to participate in the stellar downtown culture that Annarbour has to offer. But how do they participate? They live in an isolated bunker that just happens to be downtown. Every time I walk past there, the “seniors” are parked in their wheelchairs in the lobby, staring blankly through plate glass windows trying to get a glimpse of Death as he comes to gather them home. Surely they could do that in Pinckney.
posted by Boris on December 16th, 2003 at 3:13 amSeniors should live downtown… being that they can’t often drive, they are near the AATA station and within walking distance of lots of retail. And I’ve actually seen some of the folks walking around (one bitched me out for riding my bike on the sidewalk actually, and she was right). Old folks are one of the main groups who need walkable places and transit, and in Ann Arbor that generally means downtown.
posted by Brandon on December 16th, 2003 at 9:23 amBoris, those seniors were the bane of my existence when I worked at the People’s Food Co-op. They were the ones that PFC management was trying to serve when they remodeled to look more like Whole Foods, and they’re the ones that complain about everything (especially the music), and try to shoplift vitamins (no joke!). They’re the reason that during the day, James Taylor albums get put on repeat (despite the unsavory fact that he was a woman-beating heroin addict), and they’re the reason that the PFC hardly attempts to make themselves more student friendly.
posted by js on December 16th, 2003 at 9:27 amOn another note, having the Performance Network in their building is kinda neat mixed-use, but the PerfNet has responded by charging way too much for boring-ass shows. At least when they have their annual parties, Current comes and drinks on their tab.
is js dissing james taylor? oh no he didn’.
posted by elise on December 16th, 2003 at 9:39 amBrandon,
That Kroger needed a serious facelift..that is why it failed—-it wasn’t the location.
Just ask Whole Foods how important appearances are to shoppers….they are pushing $1 mill a week at the new location.
posted by todd on December 16th, 2003 at 10:14 amSeniors are living in the former Ann Arbor Inn at the SW corner of Fourth and Huron. That hotel sat vacant (vandalized, looted and stripped) for many years before it was finally turned into senior housing. If that real estate was too wonderfully precious to house the elderly, how come nobody else snapped it up when it was sitting vacant? Would you rather it still be a rotting hulk?
And absolutely, the residents of that building do a lot more than sit in wheelchairs and stare blankly. Without people of all ages living there, you can’t have a viable downtown.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 16th, 2003 at 10:28 amAs to Krogers on Broadway failing, I doubt it was the architecture.
Every organization that deals with the public has to constantly, every day, imbue itself with an ethic of service, or the staff gradually starts to regard customers as the enemy.
We used to live near the Krogers on Washtenaw, between Carpenter/Hogback and Golfside. Sometimes they advertised things at attractive prices to induce people to visit their store. But EVERY SINGLE TIME I went in there, they made me regret it.
Why shop in a place where, from the moment you walk in, the staff hates your guts for bothering them? What kind of manager tolerates employees who routinely snarl at customers? Who wants to waste time while cashiers have screaming arguments right in front of you?
Life is too short to bother with hellholes like Kroger. Meijer and Whole Foods thrive because they treat customers with courtesy and respect.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 16th, 2003 at 10:47 amThe folks who opened The Screaming Dog outdid Ann Arbor for arrogance. Asked why anyone would want to pay those prices for that food, they sneered that Ann Arborites would just have to get used to it.
Their chutzpah was awe-inspiring, but it didn’t attract any customers.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 16th, 2003 at 10:55 amLarry, the Washtenaw Krogers is doing fine, after it got a facelift. Maybe you lived there during the ugly time with labor negotiations.
posted by js on December 16th, 2003 at 12:03 pmAs for the Kroger in lower town, the two things that did it in were the opening of a new Kroger on Plymouth and the lack of effort put into it once the new store was opened. I used to shop there all the time, since it was closer to my house than the place on Plymouth, but when I saw roaches in the lettuce I decided an extra five minutes by bike was worth going to the new, sanitary spot. And quite a lot of my neighbors had similar experiences.
As for Elise (Fur Elise?)- Yeah, I am dissing Taylor. You didn’t know that he sent Carly Simon to the emergency room after battering her? And that he was smacked out for most of the ’70s? And that his music is boring bullshit, the audial equivalent of valium and cough syrup? They own two copies of his greatest hits at the PFC, and during dayshift they’d often put both of them in the cd player (multidisc).
posted by js on December 16th, 2003 at 12:05 pmjs
Larry, the Washtenaw Krogers is doing fine, after it got a facelift. Maybe you lived there during the ugly time with labor negotiations.
posted by js on December 16th, 2003 at 12:06 pmAs for the Kroger in lower town, the two things that did it in were the opening of a new Kroger on Plymouth and the lack of effort put into it once the new store was opened. I used to shop there all the time, since it was closer to my house than the place on Plymouth, but when I saw roaches in the lettuce I decided an extra five minutes by bike was worth going to the new, sanitary spot. And quite a lot of my neighbors had similar experiences.
js.
That was exactly my point—if you put a whole foods half as nice as the big one in the old kroger space, it would undoubtably be packed 24/7.
I think that the kroger out on packard near king george is in the same condition as the store that you refer to. I am certain that they will either shut it down or renovate it—-that’s what they did to the one on south industrial.
posted by todd on December 16th, 2003 at 12:08 pmI really hope we don’t get a Whole Foods in Lower Town… how about somewhere normal people can afford to shop for general groceries? We have specialty and organic markets just across the bridge in Kerrytown… from all corners I hear suggestions of a “green grocer” in the neighborhood, though. Ack.
posted by Brandon on December 16th, 2003 at 12:28 pmSee, this is where having a car becomes important. From where I live, I’d rather have another Whole Foods (or commiserate store), because they shut down the Merchant of Vino (though they’re re-opening it). For most people on the NE side of town, they’ll go to either Kroger or the new Merchant. But if you live around the lowertown area without a car, you’re pretty well screwed (unless you like the bus a lot).
posted by js on December 16th, 2003 at 3:03 pmAlthough, that Krogers was a CVS for a while and no one shopped there at all. It had everything the Krogers does except the produce, and there’s already a couple of ethnic groceries right there (Mana and Foods of India). If Krogers moved in there, it could be detrimental to those places, and I value ethnic groceries more than I do another chain.
Maybe if it were a Mana’s Whole Foods of India….
posted by Anna on December 16th, 2003 at 4:10 pmWell, to amend my previous comment, I wouldn’t mind seeing Mana go out of business. Those folks are assholes (or at least they are to me, every time my round eyes come in the store). But the Foods of India place is not only the best place to get Indian media (cds, videos) and prepared foods (the place on Packard is much better for raw ingredients), it als has the hands-down best Indian food in town, from a little take-out counter in back. Unfortunately, the damn counter is only open past 5pm now (the people who cook are old and don’t like working early in the day, or so they say), but people who swear by Raja Rani have no idea what they’re missing.
posted by js on December 16th, 2003 at 4:57 pm